If you are interested in adopting your own short URL, be aware that Android does not support all top level domains (TLDs). This is an issue because many of your potential clickers might be unable to click the links that you generate. As best we can tell, the problem arises in part of the core Android library that many Android apps (mostly Twitter clients) rely on.

We recently experienced this issue first-hand when bit.ly invited us to try their Pro service. We purchased our own short URL – andrd.me – and began using it last week. Almost immediately we noticed something was wrong when our army of Twitter followers started complaining they couldn’t click the links in our Tweets.

Some Twitter clients performed just fine, but others would not recognize any URL that ended in .me. We soon found out that the apps which use Android’s library did not work and the clients which used their own URL matcher generated the links just fine.

It looks like the issue was reported last year, but its status is still open (so don’t expect a fix anytime soon). Some of the Twitter apps which do not recognize .me links include the official Twitter and HTC’s Peep so we decided to drop our short URL and return to bit.ly.

Please fill me in if I am missing part of the equation. It was no big loss to us, but I see others are having problems so maybe this post will help someone out.

Update: Ask and you shall receive. “Just a quick update that this has already been fixed in a future version of the platform.”

Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

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Bummer, I actually kind of like the andrd.me domain. Using Twidroid i’ve never had the non link issue. It’s a damn shame that some of the other clients don’t support it.

http://Website Daniel

This is a really trivial fix, so this news might be the push it needed. Just don’t expect it for the next release; its codebase must be already frozen, and I find it unlikely they would let even such a small patch go through at this phase, especially when this issue, albeit annoying, it’s far from earth-shattering.

http://Website Alex

Erm, Might just be being silly, but what software is the screenshot of, above?.. Thought for a few moments there, there was an official twitter client haha

http://Website Alex

er… yeah just realised there is an official client, but only on eclair and up, which is a shame…now for tweetdeck

http://Website Simon Moon

Hrm…. it works great on RSS … maybe you should just dump twitter and go to a superior technology?

http://Website Jeff S

Just a quick update to the “.me” issue mentioned above, it’s already been fixed in a future platform version. :)

http://androidandme.com Taylor Wimberly

Thanks for the update.

http://tejiendo-redes.com maccur

Hey, off topic, but you dont talk about this news and is very important: after China SHOP4APPS now in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.